National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday it’s unclear if the US military will be able to recover the wreckage of the crashed MQ-9 Reaper drone in the Black Sea as it fell in “very deep water”.

But Moscow is now saying its navy will attempt to retrieve the wreckage first, and so the race is on – as AFP has emphasized. “Moscow said Wednesday it would try to retrieve the wreckage of a U.S. military drone that crashed over the Black Sea in a confrontation that Washington blamed on two Russian fighter jets,” the report says based on Kremlin statements. Brief video purporting to show the intercept incident has also emerged via a well-known Russian military Telegram channel and is being widely circulated:

Russian Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev made televised remarks on Tuesday’s drone crash, saying Wednesday, “I don’t know whether we’ll be able to retrieve it or not but it has to be done. And we will certainly work on it.”

Russia is further warning against future “hostile” US flights in its own backyard, while the Pentagon is vowing it will continue to operate in international airspace, which includes the Black Sea.

Both sides are leveling accusations of trying to draw the other into direct conflict, in what marks a dangerous escalation in rhetoric based on the very real drone encounter and close-call, given the pair of Russian jets had stopped just short of shooting down the MQ-9, which Washington would have seen as a direct act of war:

Patrushev said the incident was further proof that the United States is a direct party to fighting between Moscow and Kyiv and said Russia had a responsibility to “defend our independence and our sovereignty.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had scrambled jets after detecting a U.S. drone over the Black Sea and denied causing the crash.

Even as the Kremlin says it’s deploying assets to recover the drone, the Pentagon vows that it’s working to prevent that:

Russia said the aircraft had lost control but White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. “obviously” refuted the denial.

He added the United States was trying to prevent the fallen drone from getting into the wrong hands. “We’ve taken steps to protect our equities with respect to that particular drone — that particular aircraft,” Kirby told CNN.

So now we’re witnessing rival superpowers deploying assets in the Black Sea not far from the fighting in Ukraine in a race to recover the advanced Reaper drone. If Moscow does recover it first, it’s likely to prove a humiliation for the US, also as Russia will no doubt try to reverse-engineer and study the UAV – which designed and manufactured by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.